Mid-Seventies Rock & Roll Remembrances

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In 1975, I worked for my first concert promoter. I was 21, soon to be 22. I answered an ad in the paper that read: Person to answer phones. Young and attractive. Period, that's all it said. So I went, and was hired that day for the job of receptionist at Panther Productions, the smaller of the two major concert promoters here in my city. We were relatively small, but at that time, it didn't really matter, we had some amazing concerts and in the most wonderful venues too - some of them were old theaters, very small and intimate, and others were at the auditorium, and that only seated probably 9000. But this was in 75, remember. Anyway, I was there for a year and then the owner got busted and sent to jail for god knows what infractions, and I was looking for work. Oh, btw, I was known as "the voice". Well, the other promoter knew me and when he found out I was looking for work, he offered me the job of receptionist at his business, Contemporary Productions, which is a very major promoter in today's market also. He wanted 'the voice' at his front desk. Super. Wonderful. Let's just say I had many adventures while there. I had my own laminated backstage pass, front row center seats to every concert, and access to every group that we had. A couple of you have asked me to relate some stories from that time and I have way too many to tell you all of them, so I'm going to tell you one or two to start with, ok? So, Billy Joel is coming into town, it's 1976, and I'm dating one of his roadies, a gorgeous Mississippi cowboy aptly named Dusty Fargo. Long hair and a beard of course, big brown soulful eyes, absolutely yummy. I went to the concert to meet him, and he sat me up on top of a big speaker cabinet, gave me a bottle of Grand Marnier, and told me he'd see me after the concert. No prob. There I sat and listened to Billy Joel, who I had never heard of at that time and was damn near blown off that cabinet by how good he was. You should have seen him back then, oh my, he was a force to be reckoned with. After the concert, we were all milling about backstage, record company people, promoter staff, band members, roadies, groupies, you name them, they were there. And, as young and innocent as I was (and I'm not kidding here, honest), I just walked up to Billy as he was in conversation with a group of folks, and told him how much I loved his concert. The waters parted, and he took my hand and thanked me most sincerely and we chatted for a while. After everything was all put away, Dusty and I went back to the hotel and ended up in Billy's room, along with the rest of the band. We did some primo coke, (it was the best back then, and I haven't done it since the seventies) talked, laughed, all of it. I carried a journal with me at all times then, wrote everything down -I had left my first husband not long before and I was pretty much of a mess emotionally, so I used the book as a tool for coming back to myself. I asked Billy if there was anything he might like to say in my book and he said yes, absolutely, thank you and I actually let him take it out of the room to write in it - some trust, wow. I didn't read what he had written till the next morning when I was home. This is what he wrote to me: I don't really have any particular religious or political philosophy. Excuse me for quoting one of my own phrases, but life goes on no matter who is wrong or right. I actually just wanted to hear you talk and watch your mouth and eyes. But I don't want to do anything to upset Dusty. Ha. Isn't that noble? Anyway, writing it out relieves a certain dimension of lust. okay.... That's what he wrote to me. Pretty cool, huh? I thought so. And you know, I've always thought that he wrote the song "She's Always a Woman" for me, truly I have. It was on the Turnstiles album, put out in 1977. Call it ego, 'cause it is, but still, I choose to believe it and I'm stickin' with that. There's one story for you. I'll tell you more in another discussion. Tell me one. Please. Thank you.